EarlyAmericanCeramics.com: Ceramics Owned by the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Ceramics Owned by the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

I have visited the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. the last two summers with my nephew Jason; during each visit, I have paused for a few minutes as I passed by an exhibit of nineteenth and early-twentieth century objects, which were inspired after the hot air balloon's invention about 1783, many of which are ceramics.

According to the National Air and Space Museum, "The invention of the balloon struck the men and women of the late-eighteenth century like a thunderbolt. Enormous crowds gathered in Paris to watch balloon after another rise above the city rooftops, carrying the first human beings into the closing months of 1783. The excitement quickly spread to other European cities (and eventually America) where the first generation of astronauts demonstrated the wonder of flight. Everywhere the reaction was the same. In an age when men and women could fly, what other wonders might they achieve.

"Among all our circle of friends," one observer noted, "at all our meals, in the antechambers of our lovely women, as in the academic schools, all one hears is talk of experiments, atmospheric air, inflammable gas, flying cars, journeys in the sky."

Single sheet prints illustrating the great events and personalities in the early history of ballooning were produced and sold across Europe. The balloon sparked new fashion trends and inspired new fads and products. Hair and clothing styles, jewelry, snuffboxes, wallpaper, chandeliers, bird cages, fans, clocks, chairs, armoires, hats, and other items, were designed with balloon motifs.

Thanks to the generosity of several generations of donors, the National Air and Space Museum maintains one of the world's great collections of objects and images documenting and celebrating the invention and early history of the balloon."

National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.